MORE THAN 30 years after it was created for the purpose of finding new water, the Monterey Peninsula Water Management District approved a new water project this week.

It’s a tiny project — just 300 acre-feet a year, from a small desalination plant in Sand City.

MPWMD directors Monday voted 5-2 to grant a permit to California American Water Co. so it can distribute 300 acre-feet of desalinated water per year from the $10 million plant, which the water company will lease and operate for 15 years.

“I’m very supportive of the project,” director Dave Potter said Monday. “I’ve seen a lot of applications for desal projects and to date, this is literally the best one I’ve seen. There is no such thing as perfect, but this is pretty damn good.”

The desal plant will allow Sand City to approve new development in the city and help Cal Am reduce pumping from the Carmel River and Seaside groundwater basin.

“There have been years where we have gotten close to going over” pumping limits for the Carmel River set by state regulators, said Catherine Bowie, Cal Am’s community relations manager. “And this year we went over in the Seaside basin by 122 acre-feet. So 300 acre-feet could make a big difference.”

“Although it’s not large,” MPWMD general manager Dave Berger said of the desal project, “it is certainly significant.”

The desalinated water is intended to only be used for Sand City and not for any new development or remodels outside the city.

Not everybody convinced

At the end of Monday’s two-hour meeting, District 2 director Judi Lehman and District 3 director Kristi Markey voted against issuing the permits.

Lehman sought more time to review the project and urged a workshop for the board before directors took their vote.

“I don’t know it’s necessarily going to show an equal level of benefit for all of the ratepayers,” Lehman said. “I can see where it’s going to be a benefit for the City of Sand City ... but I really am not at this point ready to take any action for the approval of this without getting further information.”

Lehman’s comments drew a response from District 5 director Larry Foy, who noted the significance and importance of the project. “We have done nothing for new water,” Foy said. “We have not even identified a project this district would get behind. That’s been 30 years. It’s time we stop and step up.”

Sand City Mayor David Pendergrass also said it’s time for the board to move forward.

“Obviously there is a difference politically on this board as to where you want to go with anything,” Pendergrass said. “I think we need to be open minded. We need to take a footstep forward and do something.”

The desal plant is expected to be finished by February 2009.

One of the projects that would use water from the plant is a 23-acre, 216-room oceanfront resort in the city proposed by a San luis Obispo developer. But that project has not been approved. Initially, water produced by the desal plant will offset pumping from other Cal Am sources.

During the next 10 to 20 years, the benefit of the desal plant to the overall Cal Am system will diminish as Sand City’s build-out and redevelopment projects come to fruition and use the entire 300 acre-feet of desalinated water, according to the agreement.

How it works

The desal plant, which will occupy less than one acre of land, will treat brackish water from a shallow aquifer.

The process calls for the brackish water to be extracted from four beach wells in two locations west of Highway 1 and conveyed to the desalination plant on Shasta Avenue.

The water will have salts and other impurities removed by reverse osmosis and then be adjusted for pH and disinfected. It will then be transported through an 8-inch pipeline about 900 feet along Catalina Avenue where it will enter the Cal Am system at a 14-inch main at Roberts and Olympia avenues in Seaside.

The “reject” water from the plant will be sent through a 6-inch pipeline, diluted with brackish water and injected back underground, where it will eventually flow toward Monterey Bay.
Because it will draw water from beach wells, the Sand City desal facility plant won’t kill marine life. Cal Am’s larger desal plant in Moss Landing has been criticized because it will draw water directly from Monterey Bay.

According to the lease agreement, it will cost about $300,000 annually to operate the desal plant. Cal Am will pay about $765,000 annually in rent until the lease expires — money it will recoup from its customers.

The city received a $2.9 million grant to build the desal plant from the state Department of Water Resources.

“The state certainly saw the validity of what we’re doing here,” Pendergrass said. “There is no other water project on the Peninsula, so we hope this is an inspiration for future projects.”